Dear [Unnamed]

Dear [unnamed],

Wouldn’t you know, I taught a class the other day.

In spite of your voice that wanders through my head from time to time, as I pursue what I know to be part of my soul-calling. In spite of the nagging curiosity of whether my friend really could have taught it better, or if that was something you said because you were stressed beyond your capacity to be kind and thoughtful with your words.

I still taught a class. To a group of 10 strangers and only two friends who always rise to the occasion to support me. 2 out of 12 people in the energy of I’ll-be-there-no-matter-what. The rest followed the call of their heart, knowing intuitively that what I had learned over the great many years of growing, evolving, sinking into my human experience, they also needed to learn. They even paid me to learn it. Can you believe that?

That day, I walked into the venue earlier than I had planned. It snowed. So I left early to account for icy roads that were actually fine and I got there with so much extra time. The owner of the venue trusted me so much that she just gave me the code to her lockbox. Perhaps she sensed something innate in me, an energy maybe, that she aligned with. After all, this was inspired by her. She was the one who left the comment on my post about Shadow Work.

“I’d love to host you on this topic,” and the vortex of belief sent me hurtling towards her and her venue and the offering that I am not sure I would have come up with on my own. Maybe that is the way that magic works. It happens to you, through you, but not of you. Maybe.

And so I walked into the space with the long hallway and the high ceilings and the slick wooden floors. The lights were off and the space was swollen with sacred silence.

And I belonged.

I removed my shoes, as one does on holy ground. I tiptoed around the space with sock feet and I flipped on lights, prepared tea service, and set up my meditation chair and my floor desk. I am never too far from the ground these days. It must be something about roots and branches. Yes, I’m sure that’s it.

Remember that completely unhinged teaching about fig trees and figs and root systems? Remember how hard we all stretched to make something so simple seem so profound since the teacher had the “wisdom of age” and a Ph.D. to back it up? The secret I’ve learned three years out, is that the simple is profound. That age does not always beget wisdom. That a PhD can so often be a hindrance to the feeling of it all.

One cannot bear fruit if one is not planted in the ground. That is the simple of it. The mother beckons us, sink lower, child. Sink into me. And so I do. And the fruit grows.

As I pranced around filling pitchers and setting up tables, I got a splinter in my foot. I laughed to myself, “my Moses metaphor is shot. Surely barefoot Moses tripping on psychedelics in front of his burning bush did not get a splinter.” Of course, I was looking to the future knowing I would absolutely be writing you this letter, of belonging, of victory, of alignment, of self-identifying as a teacher in spite of your words that meant to keep me not one.

But then I realized my Moses metaphor is perfected.

Holy ground no matter what kind it is will leave us harmed.

The holy journey we took together was a brutal one, wasn’t it? Were any of us actually known? Were any of us actually honest? I wasn’t known or honest. But on that journey, I began realizing that tragedy, and so what a worthy, holy journey it was. The gratitude is finally here after the healing of it.

The one thing I didn’t fully heal… The splinter. Your words that fateful final evening, where you took the role of dictatorial mediator. You called me immature. You told me I didn’t deserve to teach if I wasn’t willing to scrub toilets. You told me my beloved friend could teach circles around us both.

That wasn’t harmful to you, who never had this soul-led longing to share what you are learning the way I did. The way I do. But to me, it was the sharpest knife, plunged in by one who I considered a friend. By one who I trusted enough to ask to act as a mediator in a difficult conversation, that went sideways anyway. Mediator or no.

But here I am a few short years later and I taught a class. To strangers willing to pay me for the pleasure of learning my lessons.

And the knife wound once so damaging I played it on repeat anytime I was scared of failing, is nothing more than a splinter in the bottom of my foot. I can barely feel it, as I walk this

new holy ground.